Getty Image / Joe Robbins
Hundreds of Minor League Baseball players have recently been released while MLB still twiddles its thumbs trying to figure out how the pros should resume their season. During this current shutdown, minor leaguers have been receiving just $400 a month from the teams.
Everyone in the minors already gets paid peanuts but that money was just ripped away by the greedy baseball owners. Some dudes come into the leagues with enormous signing bonuses but they’re still paid peanuts. Minor League Baseball players who aren’t drafted in the first few rounds of the MLB draft typically get enormous signing money but they’re basically forced to live off that until they make it to the majors which is always a big ‘if’.
Many Minor League teams chose to release hundreds of players this week as they are facing the possibility that MLB won’t get it together and a season won’t happen at all. For The Win reported on one of those players released, former 2nd round MLB Draft pick Andrew Church who had spent his entire minor league career with the New York Mets organization.
Andrew Church is justifiably angry for being released by the Mets and took to Instagram where he put the organization on blast and took shots at them signing Tim Tebow, a move he said cost other (better) players their jobs. He hopped into the comments to add more and I’ve included the full caption below:
https://www.instagram.com/p/CAwGByGng4P/
Please read to understand my true feelings.
Today I got released by the NY Mets organization. The people on the other end of the phone had nothing but good things to say and I appreciated that very much. Anyone that has seen me play and compete knows that I lay it all on the line no matter what. Every practice, every game. I am a competitor, a true warrior. It’s in my DNA. From the outside looking in, my baseball career probably raises a lot of questions. Why did you retire and come back? How come your numbers aren’t very good if you were that dedicated? I have always kept my opinions to myself out of respect for the organization I signed a contract with. But now that it’s officially over with them I’d like to say some things. One of the main reasons I retired was to keep myself from expressing how I felt. I was bitter, frustrated, and angry at the Mets organization. I felt my competitive nature was being taken advantage of. They knew I would never say no to competing and would fly me around to fill in for anyone that got injured. I realized this wasn’t in my best interest when my delayed flight finally landed in the 3rd inning, and I was on the mound in a AAA baseball game for the first time, without any warm-up throws.My UCL originally tore that night. Instead of seeing a doctor like I asked, they sent me back to High A to pitch in the playoffs. When I told them I couldn’t, I was made out to be the bad guy. Then the next year, they made a mockery of our team by putting a celebrity on it to sell more tickets. I saw players lose their jobs because of it. We weren’t playing to win, we were playing to make everyone else money. Not the players. We never saw a cut. Well, allegedly that one player did. I think people are starting to understand that more now but they didn’t in 2018 when it was happening again. I was fed up. I spent my whole childhood honing in my passion and anger, to not let it get out of control, but it was and I was going to explode. So I took the opposite direction, I bottled it and silenced myself. I took some time away and cleared my head. Continued in comments..
He clearly had A LOT to say and all of it seems justified. As it appears, he’s spent his entire career being mistreated by the Mets and to be dropped by them at the most uncertain time in modern history is salt in the wounds. Here’s what he added in the comments:
“Baseball has always been the only constant in my life. No matter if I’m active or not I will always play. It’s my release. I asked to be reinstated in 2019, when a new player development regime took over for the Mets. I honestly think they are making strides to be a better organization, but the culture that has been built for decades within that organization is toxic. Filled with snakes and bottom feeders trying to elevate their professional careers at the expense of the players, with no remorse.
“I hadn’t pitched in a competitive game in over a year, but they needed a filler because someone got hurt the night before. I took a red-eye flight, to one stadium, a 7-hour bus trip, another flight, and a taxi to the stadium I would be pitching in. Again I was in a AAA baseball game with no worry about my well being. I lost my drive to perform for an organization that continuously treats us as pawns in their chess games. Especially when the ones doing it, don’t know what it takes to be a baseball player. And some must’ve just forgotten.
“Ignorance is a scary thing. We see it in mainstream society too often. Ignorance with power and a lack of empathy is, in my eyes, the scariest of all evils. Thank you to all the players and coaches who had the passion and drive to empower each other and push the game forward. (Expletive) you to everyone who wasn’t. You have no place in professional baseball.
“To my future, you all know I can’t stop. And I get scary when I’m motivated. Watch out! CarveNation.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/CAn3PvyHPga/
Across the country, Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher David Price is paying $1,000 per player out of his own pocket to every Dodgers Minor League player that isn’t on the 40-man roster at the end of June.
The Los Angeles Dodgers are owned by Guggenheim Baseball Management who purchased the team for $2.15 BILLION back in 2012. The team is worth an estimated $3.4 billion this year. The idea that they can’t continue to pay their employees $400/month, which is already pathetically low, is insane to me.